Rachel Toulouse

Everything is carved, you know.
Separated from the solid
And set free to take a shape
To move if it will
To love if it can
To send its hunger scratching
And crawling into the dark places.

I paint what I see
And I see the world as through a heat vapor
Now wavering, now standing still,
But always keeping its intangible distance.

I have attacks sometimes
My tongue thickens
And grows to fill my mouth
Useless as a wooden blade
Dumb as a dead fish
Washed up against the rocks.

What I mean is, can you save me?
Can you pick me up and shake me
Shake me hard until the clapper rattles
Loose against the bell, until the shriek
That I've been holding in with every breath
Finally escapes?

And even then, even as I seem to revive,
As my steely scales soften back into flesh,
As my fingers find yours beneath the blankets
Will you gather me in like anything scattered,
Like anything that needs to be composed,
Like letters lost on a page?